Mirrors Don’t Lie: Business Exceptionalism is Rare but Pursuable

It surprises nobody more than me that I am a staunch yoga enthusiast. About 10 years ago I signed up for a series of classes with my daughter, and my opinion of yoga was a lukewarm, “Well, it’s something for us to do together.” While she walked away from the experiment with a middling impression of yoga, I was hooked.

Over the years, I graduated from the entry-level classes to more complex classes with interesting movements. And I’ve done everything in between — from Don Draper-esque zen classes to routines that would leave an NFL star drenched in sweat. Across all these diverse experiences, I’ve always been fascinated by the core concept of how different movements can be executed to create new positions and experiences.

In the past decade, I’ve gotten to a spot where I’m pretty good (ask me and I’ll tell ya). I sometimes look around at other participants in class, and I’ll notice that people aren’t following the proper forms. I don’t say anything, but my nature is that of a judgy bitch (as my daughter suggests) so I take notice. I then bravely undermine the entire ethos of a yoga practice and think, “Huh, I bet I do that a lot better, but I guess I’ve been doing it longer.” 

I recently arrived late to a medium-level class, which got me placed in a corner of the room nearest the wall of mirrors. I started following along with the poses, and as I took my usual survey of the room, I noticed that this person wasn’t holding their arms straight, that person wasn’t supporting their weight the right way, etc. 

Finally, as we were executing a pose that required me to be rigid and staunch, I glanced in the mirror. And I was horrified that, instead of the tense and resolute image of myself I had in my mind’s eye, I saw a starfish staring back at me. Loose, slack limbs, no tension in the body to speak of. 

As it turned out, the image of myself I had in my head was starkly different from the reality of the mirror. I continued the class with a bit more grace for the other people in the room as well as myself, but even so, I noticed that as the class continued on, I got sloppier and more tired — more like a starfish, if you will.

I think this discrepancy between how we perceive ourselves and how we actually perform can also be observed in business management. Many times I have used this column as a platform to encourage readers to carefully examine how they manage and practice. That thought occurred to me as I saw my own failings in yoga, and I realized that while we often tell ourselves narratives of how we’re better than our competitors for X reason or another, the truth is more often that we each do some things well and other things perhaps not quite so well as we imagine.

When we experience success, it’s easy to say that it’s because we’re outperforming others in key areas. Conversely, when someone in our peer group isn’t doing well, we’re quick to attribute their circumstances to personal failings or a lack of ability on their part. 

The truth, though, is that every person and business does some things right, and it gets others wrong. Instead of staring in the mirror or looking down on people with less-than-perfect yoga forms, the best thing that I can do to continue improving is look at the flaws I see in others and start identifying if maybe those are flaws that I exhibit sometimes as well.

If you want to put this mindset into practice, pick two to five KPIs and behaviors that you think your business does exceptionally well — areas in which you believe you exceed your peers. Then take your list and do some research within your peer group. This could mean looking at ads or websites or sales proposals, or it could mean an apples-to-apples comparison of products or services. Compare both your own materials and those of your competitors against what you perceive to be best practices, and see how each of you stack up.

If you’re like me and you’re certain that you’re already exceptional, you might be surprised to see that your competitors are either matching or exceeding in you in some areas, possibly even most of them. There will be some areas where you shine and others where you don’t, but in business, the key is consistency. If you can identify areas to improve and make those changes stick, you’ll have a much stronger case to keep your customers coming back to you instead of your competitors.

Revisiting my poses, it doesn’t take much to adjust yourself and get back into proper form. But the only way to do that is to take a look in the mirror and identify where you actually are rather than trusting the faulty perception that you have of yourself.